Denial
by lazzara-on-3rd
Summary: AL: But Lindsey didn't know anything about Angel's split personality. He didn't know about the Manilow, the flaying, or the Irish drunk. He simply knew that he had an unhealthy fascination with a man who wanted him dead, who was in fact dead himself.


Title: Denial  
  
Author: Lestat Manson  
  
Disclaimer: Joss owns everything. Or. He will, until tonight. Afterwhich he'll only own the copyrights and some royalties.  
  
Authors Notes: Hi. I just crossed over from band slash, meaning that all the devoted Angelverse fans will quite possibly hate me, not just for my lack of talent, but also for my blasphemous marring of facts. I've switched things up so that, well, Lindsey didn't leave right after Dead End. He has a hand.  
  
Since tonight marks the death of a series I love, I felt like there'd be no better time to try my hand at the new fandom.  
  
Pairing: Angel/Lindsey  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: iBut Lindsey didn't know anything about Angel's split personality. He didn't know about the Manilow, the flaying, or the Irish drunk. He simply knew that he had an unhealthy fascination with a man who wanted him dead, who was in fact dead/i himself, i and that that was a very, very bad thing/i  
  
Liam loved him first.  
  
Liam, the drunken man-whore who spent the better part of his life lounging about in pubs, downing draft [spilling as much as he consumed], and chatting up bar maids, loved him before Angel had even taken him into consideration.  
  
He was quite proud of his own powers of perception, actually.  
  
Liam, the charmer, with his thick Irish brogue, his shaggy, dirty hair and his lecherous smile. Trapped in his hard-haired, brooding-and-dark undead incarnation, took one look at the cool, apathetic Lindsey, and knew without doubt that it was Meant to Be. Like a fairytale, like a folk song, like a modern-day melodrama, Liam knew that this was written in the /i.  
  
Angel never looked at the stars. It was, Liam had to assume, yet another part of the eternal punishment his poor alter-ego had inflicted upon his'self, and it drove him half-mad with longing. After all, Liam's existence mirrored that of Sire Broody, and Angel's existence was just pathetically dull.  
  
Well. Aside from the demon-fighting, redemption-seeking, and occasional fornification with luscious blonde girls. Which generally ended in lose-of- soul, evil murder plots, and a hellva lot more angst once the whinging bastard was re-instated to his body.  
  
Liam was decidedly on the side of Angelus. Angelus, at least, understood that the finer things in the world deserved appreciation, and sometimes listened to Liam's advice. Whereas Angel, the bleedin' hearted sod, tamped him down like the earth over a grave, making sure that Liam was never shown to anyone. Oh, how Liam hated it when Angelus was pushed back down into the mental prison with him.  
  
Liam, back in his day, would have seen ihim/i, the precious ball of masculine prettiness, as the perfect treasure that he was.  
  
With the sandy blonde hair that put him in mind of a princess from one of the stories his mother told him as a lad . . . the blue eyes with the thick lashes, which seemed long enough to knit a fairly comfortable sweater . . . and not to be forgotten, those slim, womanly hips [Liam couldn't help it. He always had been attracted to hips].  
  
Liam would have staggered his way across the tavern to buy the boy a drink. Then spent the night talkin' him into renting out a room upstairs, eventually rushing him out and skipping out on the tab.  
  
Yes. Liam was a cheap bastard. He was fine with that.  
  
. . . the point, of course, was that Liam, strong and intelligent as a man could be, would not have stopped until he had hooked that sweet thing, clawed his way into the depths of his soul, and set up house in his bottom of his heart. Liam spent his [and Angel's, and Angelus'] lonesome days, tottering about inside the still-firm, long-dead body they were forced to share, and wondering when, iwhen/i the daft Dark Avenger would realize that two of his three personalities were deeply committed to the evil lawyer-boy.  
  
Because, clearly, Angelus loved him too.  
  
Of course, with Angelus, nothing was as simple as that.  
  
To Angelus, really, it was about ownership. Pure, clean wholesome iposession/i. Black-and-white, no grey area. Angelus looked at Lindsey, and saw a handsome pet, mingled with a bit of himself, really.  
  
More than a bit. Quite alot, actually. Power-hungry, devious, dishonest, sexy to the core, and a really sharp dresser. Lindsey with his rage, and his need to prove his worth to a world that had cruelly back-burnered him numerous times, the deep desire to avenge his wronged family [it was all very touching], iLindsey/i was iclearly/i meant for him. Angelus. To have and to hold, to torture and molest . . . like Will, really, but with a creamy complexion and rich singing voice.  
  
But then there was the downside.  
  
Lindsey had a conscience, and Angelus really didn't hold with such purely stupid nonsense. His golden-haired Chosen One was cut from the same cloth as Angel, his simpering souled half. Whiney, guilt-ridden, wanting to destroy the world and save it all at the same time.  
  
He didn't like that.  
  
No, if Lindsey were perfect, he'd be using that marvelous, southern-fried drawl to laugh maniacally at the pain and suffering of the home less, the neglected elderly, and all those amusing sights. He would also be working around the clock to free Angelus from his prison, from the dark recesses of the Souled One's over-coifed head, where he was trapped day-in, day-out with the insufferable Irishman left over from the pre-Darla days. But he didn't. Lindsey sat behind his big desk, signed his checks, represented his evil clients, and did not give Angelus a second thought.  
  
If he were freed, the first thing he would do was  
  
. . . well, wait for night-fall . . .  
  
But after that, soon as the sun was down, he'd march his ass right over to Wolfram & Hart, snap the necks of anyone who got in his way [maybe allow some time for laughing and pointing, enjoying the death rattles], and turn that son-of-a-bitch with great violence and much neck-licking.  
  
Sigh.  
  
He had it all planned out, gone over it time and time again, listened to the nattering of Liam, absorbed the Angel Angstfest, taken the hits, lived in the shadows, and fine-tuned his course of action. It passed the time. See, the thing most people don't get about being trapped inside someone's guilt-filled mind, is that you don't get a book of crossword puzzles or a deck of cards. Evil plotting is the only thing that gets you through the day.  
  
He had some good ones, too. Really . . . assassinations, decapitations, kidnapping, murder . . .  
  
Lindsey would love them. Or. Vamp Lindsey would. Lonesome Cowboy Lindsey would be shocked and horrified. And Angelus would laugh, or cackle, and sink his fangs into that hot flesh . . . right over the swelling vein in his neck . . . feeling the throb of warm blood rushing up to meet his hungry tongue . . .  
  
Fuck, he had planned. Damn Angel and his stubbornness. Evacuate soul, let Angelus have the lawyer, it'd be fine. Slaughter the Englishman, flay the brunette, turn the lawyer. Slaughter, flay, turn. Easy as pie.  
  
But Angel wouldn't give in. And Angelus was left to scheme, and hope against all odds that at some point, something would set him free, or that Angel would ifinally/i clue into the fact that Lindsey was It, allowing Angelus to live through Angel. It was better than nothing. He could compromise on the flaying.  
  
By God, he hoped that Angel would notice.  
  
Angel didn't notice.  
  
Rather, Angel inoticed/i, but ignored it. Repressed it, forced it into the deep caverns of his mind, way into the back where he kept Darla, Buffy, the ill-fated gypsy girl, Angelus and Liam. He occasionally allowed himself to indulge in certain Lindsey-related fantasies, which usually involved him finally choking that worthless half-wit to death, disposing of the body, and sending condolences to the family.  
  
Oh, come on, he had a isoul/i. It was customary to send flowers.  
  
Although, come to think of it, those fantasies sometimes ended in him not choking Lindsey, but pushing him into a wall and ravaging his writhing body, gripping those feminine hips and thrusting against him with no sense of shame whatsoever. Angel had a thing for hips. He blamed it on Lindsey, that aesthetically pleasing asshole.  
  
Sometimes he slept, and when he slept he dreamt of stabbing Lindsey to death, watching him struggle and scream as the blade pierced his skin. The blood bubbling up, flowing from the wound . . . Angel, leaning in to lap at the thick, coppery liquid before it all soaked into his shirt . . .  
  
These dreams ended in Lindsey getting up and begging for his life, tears rushing down his face. Angel then nodded, kindly, smoothing his hair and whispering sweet nothings into his ear. They came back to Hyperion and had wild sex involving chocolate syrup and bondage tools . . . and then he woke up, showered, and berated himself for bingeing on tainted pigs blood, which was iobviously/i the reason for his horrible nightmares.  
  
Whatever. When the voices in his head got a bit too loud, he's simply turn on the record player in his office and lose himself in the soft tenderness of /i.  
  
iOh, Lindsey . . . you came and you gave without taking . . . but I cut off your hand, oh Lindsey . . . /i  
  
Yes. There was really nothing like a little Manilow to wash away the psychotic feelings of lust for your arch nemesis. And if that failed, there was wine. Lots of it. Enough to numb him into a state of temporary calm.  
  
Denial was a funny thing.  
  
Lindsey, for his part in it all, was blissfully clueless.  
  
Oh, sure, he knew the basics. That Angel was a mystery man in a black leather coat, that he had once been evil, that now he was a whiney pansy- assed bastard whose purpose in . . . life . . . was to make him miserable. To sleep with his woman. To cut off his hand. To leave him to die a slow, painful death in the wine cellar of Holland's house caused by the aforementioned woman.  
  
He knew that Angel was dead sexy [pardon the pun], and that he got uncomfortably hot under the collar when sent one of those dark, brooding ilooks/i. He knew that when Angel tried to kill him, whether directly or no, that did nothing to stop the flow of blood to various parts of his body at the mere mention of his name.  
  
Well. God gave men a brain and a penis. It's too bad that he only gave them enough blood to work one at a time.  
  
But Lindsey didn't know anything about Angel's split personality. He didn't know about the Manilow, the flaying, or the Irish drunk. He simply knew that he had an unhealthy fascination with a man who wanted him dead, who was in fact dead ihimself/i, and that that was a very, very bad thing.  
  
He knew that having mushy, sappy feelings of Valentine's Dayish affectionate feelings for Angel was a not nice thing. So Lindsey did as any man would - bottled everything up and pretended not to care. But Lindsey wasn't terribly happy with that, as he worked for a company that employed mind readers and other scary magical people, so . . .  
  
Lindsey vented.  
  
He worked. He went to the gym. He took up pottery. He took up smoking. At times, he did drunken karaoke, while the Host looked at him with loving eyes. He didn't think of Angel, he didn't look for Angel, he ibanished/i Angel from his mind.  
  
Until he came home one night with a fresh carton of smokes and realized that Angel was sitting in his apartment, looking terribly calm, twiddling his thumbs and paging through iTV Guide/i.  
  
At that point, Lindsey panicked.  
  
There was screaming. There was punching. There was sarcasm hurled every whichway, most of it directed at Angel, flowing like bullets from a spitfire, compliments of Lindsey McDonald.  
  
At this point, Liam was waiting, hoping against hope that Angel would ifinally/i make his move. Angelus, pushed even further down in an attempt to keep the demon from rising to the surface and slitting the Oklahoman's throat, thought wistfully of his wondrous plans of hotkinkysex.  
  
Angel, suffering massive headache and some conflict, so confused by the onslaught of differing opinions, and ducking to avoid the various pieces of rather pointy furniture the object of his annoyance was throwing his way, grabbed the boy by the arms and pulled him onto the IKEA showroom couch, sliding across the slippery leather surface as he struggled to crush him against his chest [and stop him from jabbing a letter opener into his back].  
  
Lost in the moment, his forgotten personalities were shoved aside, and in a moment of rare clarity, Angel was in complete control. Silence. Everything was white, everything was certain, and he knew, silly boy, exactly what needed to be done.  
  
He always had wondered what the Evil Embodiment of Wolfram & Hart tasted like. Now he knew. Smoke, sugar, and ilife/i. Angel decided, with no bias at all, that it was something he could most definitely get used to. As he threaded a hand through the shiny-soft hair attached to the head that was attached to the mouth that was attached to him, as Lindsey reached up to grasp his broad [stooped, maybe] shoulder pulling him closer, he realized that for once -  
  
They had unity. 


End file.
